Gaffe-ridden, under pressure and worryingly reliant on a single pudgy‑faced talent: this had not been an easy World Cup week for ITV. First came the mistake that led to HD viewers being shown a car advert instead of England's goal last Saturday; then the sacking of Robbie Earle for doing pretty much the only interesting thing Robbie Earle has ever done during his career as a TV pundit. One thing was clear: ITV needed a performance. And they kind of got one, albeit in a strangely riled, oddly angry and pleasantly non-ITV kind of way.

"Hello from all of us at ITV Sport," Adrian Chiles began in penitent corporate-spokesmen mode. Chiles has already lost his air of frisky newbie figurehead; in fact tonight he had the rumpled, urgent appearance of a man holding the whole ship together, his collar mussed and a single stalk of wire‑wool hair protruding from his salt‑and-pepper turban.

Also in fretful mood around the strobe-lit coffee table were Patrick Vieira, a medallioned Kevin Keegan and Chiles's chief companion, the waspish Gareth Southgate who, scrubbed and primped, increasingly resembles the kind of upmarket and slightly sneery serial killer who wears a cravat and sits in his palazzo listening to Mozart.

ITV has also been criticised for the maddening ragbag of oddments with which it continued to fill the very long hour before kick‑off. Tonightwe got the very nice Kelly Cates doing one of her breathless reports about what's really happening out there that, let's face it, no one really wants to watch. Plus pictures of two incredibly smart middle-aged men talking in mumbling voices who turned out, on close inspection, to be princes Harry and William – our golden-haired boys! – suddenly ancient and incoherently gnarled with posh.

Footage of Chiles being wumped in the groin by the Jabulani ball seemed unnecessary. "I won't be crossing my legs tonight," he said, drawing attention on national TV – in a way Dickie Davies or Brian Moore never really did – to his testicles. Also gratuitous was a plug for Dizzee Rascal's ITV-inflected No1 hit, used to introduce the upcoming James Corden's World Cup Vomit-Sneeze with Russell Brand, David Blunkett and Foxy Knoxy (I may not have been paying attention to this entirely).

"Cam on England we need ta sowt it aht!" Dizzee urged, conjuring the ghost of Andy Townsend, banished to co-commentary tonight. Townsend has been hard to get close to as a pundit, but he is without doubt entirely relentless. This is his key strength, a sense that he will never end, that he can simply carry on forever being Andy Townsend and that 40 years from now you'll open your fridge door, or clear out an old wardrobe and inside you'll find Andy Townsend, unchanged and still talking about "Big Emile" and set-piece situations and the need for that bit of quality out wide.

"It's flat, it's flat," Townsend growled half an hour into the game. But rather than flat it has been oddly enervating watching England's games in the company of his talkoholic pairing with the gurgling Clive Tyldesley. Tonight they were joined by the guttural barfings of Fabio Capello, his Jurassic "Hrrrrraaaghs!" picked up quite clearly on the touchline mic.

And at least by half-time there was a pleasantly vinegary atmosphere in the studio. "We look frightened," Southgate spat. "We need the Rooneys, we need the Lampards," Keegan urged, still looking incredibly tired and worried, like someone roused in the small hours to fret in a dressing gown while the village post office burns down. "They don't look like they're enjoying it, for goodness sake," Townsend almost yelled as the second half chugged on.

A bad night for England perhaps. But once the light entertainment frippery had been sanded away, not a bad one for a refreshingly chippy, unusually impatient ITV. May their World Cup always be troubled. It turns out it kind of suits them.